Monday, November 8, 2010

I have a trip coming soon to the Florida Keys, and have big plans for my GoPro HD Hero cameras. In addition to some Kite Aerial Photography, we'll be doing some kiteboarding and sailing, and these little camera's will be mounted just about everywhere. The one negative feature of the GoPro HD Hero is the soft focus due to the curvature of the lens when using the underwater housing actually under water. A few clever Do-It yourselfers figured out that if you place a flat lens in front of the Hero while using it underwater, you get perfect focus. I decided that I would research this and attempt to create a "flat lens" housing myself.

You can purchase these types of flat lens housing from Eye of Mine and other 3rd party suppliers, and will run you about $70 the last time I checked. I had an extra housing, so I decided to go with the DIY model. Using trusty ol' Google, I stumbled across this site which basically was exactly what I was looking for. The guys at Jazz and Fly fishing deserve all of the credit, and I just replicated what they did with a few minor tweaks. I ordered a 58mm UV lens off Amazon for a few dollars, and a couple of Avent Baby bottles. I had the Epoxy already, and I used spray paint versus magic marker to get the cap black.

I used a dremel tool to adjust the avent bottle cap to the right inner and out diameter, versus using a hobby knife. I used an old lens cap off an old camcorder to protect the new lens, and secured it in place for travel with rubber bands.

So, does it work?

I was dying to test it out, so I filled a large stainless steel pot, and recorded a couple quick movies using the original housing, and the new flat lens housing. The original housing is blurry, and you cannot read the card that I was holding on the bottom. The new flat lens housing was a drastic improvement. The words are instantly readable. I'll post some video of something more interesting now that I know that it works! See for yourself: